


Don't You Cry No More

by Purpleskiesofdragons



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Brotherly Angst, I'm Going to Hell, Not Canon Compliant, don't assassinate me please, forgive me???, i promise tumblr made this up not me, like massive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:15:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22203205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purpleskiesofdragons/pseuds/Purpleskiesofdragons
Summary: Based off a Tumblr prompt:What if the entire Supernatural series was just a hallucination, and Dean never saved Sam from the fire?jesus im so sorry
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Don't You Cry No More

**Author's Note:**

  * For [authoressjean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/authoressjean/gifts).



> okay so  
> this is my first work in the supernatural fandom and i've already destroyed canon, made y'all sad, and am just generally a walking disaster 
> 
> :)
> 
> i'm also currently not past season 3 so bear with me i know nothing of anything beyond that  
> who knows, dean may have gone to hell again, sam may have died too, and cas is just out there living his depressed life  
> don't attack me please

It’s the middle of the night, and Dean is hanging by his arms from the rafters of a barn. 

Below him, Sam dispatches a demon with stunning dexterity, ducking under its fangs and running a blade through its chest. It freezes with a little choking sound, and crumples to the floor as Sam tears his knife out. Dean gives his brother a lopsided grin as he looks up. 

“Mind helping me down, bitch?” he jokes. Sam rolls his eyes, but scales the loft’s ladder to make his way across to Dean. 

“Jump,” he instructs, gesturing to a space about a meter and a half away from where Dean is trying not to fall. Squinting, Dean calculates the leap, before swinging his weight backwards and then throwing himself forward. Sam catches his forearm, hauling him up onto safe ground. 

“Jerk,” he snorts. “I still don’t know how you got up there.” 

“I fell,” Dean mutters sullenly. Sam barks out a laugh and punches him lightly on his already sore arm. “Hey!” 

“Let’s go find a hotel and patch up the princess,” Sam teases. “Do you need help getting down the ladder?” Dean scowls harder and defiantly climbs down, ignoring the shooting pains in his muscles. A bit of rest and some ice, and he’ll be fine tomorrow. 

Sam takes the wheel, to Dean’s secret relief, and floors the gas as he reverses from their woodland parking spot. Dean notices that he studiously refuses to touch the radio, so Dean, when Sam isn’t looking, slyly punches in a station and turns up the radio. Sam raises one eyebrow as Kansas begins to fill the Impala, but says nothing. 

_ Carry on my wayward son… _

Dean takes the peaceful moment to allow a flush of pride to swell through his chest; he remembers that night, years ago, when Dean tore into Sam’s dorm to drag his brother away from the horribly familiar inferno blazing to life on the ceiling. He’d been so young back then, a near-stranger to the ways of a hunter. But he’d learned how to hunt-- and he was good at it, too-- and now the yellow-eyed demon was simply another successful hunt on the distant horizon. They’ve fought and cried and loved and lost, but they’re still here. Just him and Sammy. 

_ There’ll be peace when you are done...  _

Dean tips his head back, watching the trees flash by in his periphery. Sam, though he’s trying to hide it, is quietly mouthing the lyrics to himself as he stares off somewhere in the distance. 

_ Lay your weary head to rest… _

_ DOn’T yoU cRY-- _

_ crRyYYYY-- _

_ dONt YoU cRyYYYYY-- _

Dean leans forward, tapping the dashboard, but the radio continues to distort and flicker. 

_ CRYYYYYYYY--- _

Sam is beginning to flicker beside him, continuing on driving like nothing’s happening. Dean, in a panic, grabs his shoulder, but  _ his hand goes right through _ .

“Sam?” 

He’s still mouthing the words as the world begins to twist and warp. 

“Sam!” 

“ _ Sammy _ !” 

\---

Dean snaps awake to his shoulder violently being shaken. He bolts up, fists raised, and the person shaking him quickly draws back. He flashes his gaze toward them; their features are stunningly familiar.  _ Ruby? _

“Who are you? Where’s Sammy?” he demands, grabbing for some kind of weapon but coming up empty-handed. “Ruby? Why are you here?  _ What did you do? _ ” 

“I’m Nurse Ruby,” she corrects him calmly, ignoring all the  _ important _ questions. “It’s time for your morning medicine, Dean.” 

“I don’t need medicine,” Dean spits back. He aims a glance around the room, seeing if there’s a way out-- it’s all white, with pictures hung haphazardly on the walls and a single door behind Ruby. Dean squints at the pictures. A home standing tall against a bright blue Kansas sky. A vintage black car. A few cans of red spray paint. A lone house, surrounded by a multitude of used cars. They’re all stunningly familiar, but familiar in the way that a distant childhood memory is, the last wisps of significance slowly ebbing away from his mind. 

There’s one more photo he hasn’t noticed before until now. Next to his bedside, a printed photograph is propped up, surrounded on both sides by glass. Someone has made an attempt to preserve it; it's obviously been well-loved. Two perpendicular creases bisect down the middle, indicating that it’s been unfolded and refolded countless times, so much so that another fold might shred it.

Dean reaches to pick it up, tipping the glass so that the overhead lights don’t reflect on the image. Four faces smile back at him-- a man with wild dark hair and a huge smile, a woman with sparkling eyes and messy blond hair, a boy with scruffy brown hair and piercing green eyes, and another boy, looking no older than nine months, with soft hazel eyes and brown hair sticking to the sides of his head. Dean remembers when the woman with the drowned child handed the box of pictures to him, and him tucking a photo carefully in the inner pocket of his jacket. He could have sworn that it stayed in his wallet the entire time; he never took it out.  _ Right _ ? 

“How’d you get this?” he asks Ruby, holding it close to his chest. Ruby smiles, and it’s a sad one. Dean feels massively out of the loop— even more so because he  _ knows _ that he killed Ruby, and that she should never have the picture in the first place. 

“It’s the only photo of you and your family that survived,” she replies. 

“Yeah, right,” Dean scoffs. “Sammy’s a big guy now. Over six feet. You, of all people, should have a more recent picture of him.” The look Ruby gives him is full of so much pity that Dean wants to whip it right back in her face.  _ Why are you looking at me like that? _ he wants to shout.  _ What are you not telling me? Why am I here?  _

“Sammy’s not here,” she says softly. 

“What’d you do to him?” Dean snarls, back on high-alert. Ruby sends him another  _ look _ ; he begins to rise from the bed, intent on beating it out of her if he has to, but then he  _ remembers _ . 

_ smokefireburningburningburningfire-- _

_ “Dean, take your brother and go!”  _

_ The smoke, it’s choking him, he has to get out of bed-- find Sammy-- _

_ Dean bolting down the hallway, toward Sam’s door--  _

_ Flames, spiraling up higher than Dad, consuming the carpet in front of him-- _

_ Dean’s socked feet, slipping on the hardwood uselessly as Dad drags him away from the inferno-- _

_ A tiny, piercing wail from the upstairs window, so familiar that Dad and Dean both grip each other tighter as firefighters shoot jets of water at the burning house-- _

Dean’s breath comes out ragged and fast as he grips the picture ( _ he swears that he can still smell the smoke as it invades his lungs and strangles his breath _ ). Beside him, Ruby bends down slightly, looking like she’d rather swallow a rock than explain. 

But she does it anyway. 

“Just a dream.” 

**Author's Note:**

> :,)
> 
> authoressjean i love you and your writing and this was such a horrible way to say thanks  
> but thanks anyways


End file.
